Small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) and datacenter operators are minimizing the footprints of their computing equipment using virtualization. Heavily virtualized environments require a good network backend (efficient IP-SANs and / or fast NAS units along with 10G-enabled switches). However, NAS units and switches with 10G functionality are currently not very cost-effective.

QNAP already has powerful and affordable rackmounts capable of accepting 10G add-on cards such as the TS-EC1279U-RP. The need for their customers was affordable 10G networking equipment. While vendors such as Netgear (and, to some extent, Supermicro) bundle both switches and NAS / storage server units as a package for customers, QNAP doesn't have expertise on the networking side in-house. On the other hand, ZyXEL's NAS ambitions have been restricted to home consumer versions. Therefore, teaming up makes a lot of sense for both QNAP and ZyXEL.

We are very impressed by the price points that QNAP and ZyXEL have achieved with their bundles. There are two packages: The Performance Pack bundles a ZyXEL XGS1910-24 (a 24-port switch with 2x 10Gb SFP ports) and a QNAP TS-870U-RP (a 8-bay rackmount with a 2.4 GHz dual core x86 CPU) for less than $3000. The Premium Pack bundles a ZyXEL XGS1910-48 (a 48-port switch with 4x 10Gb SFP ports) and a QNAP TS-1270U-RP (a 12-bay rackmount with a 2.4 GHz dual core x86 CPU) for less than $4000. These price points are way less than what one would pay separately for the units.

While pricing is definitely important, bundling, long term support and reliability are other factors that SMB customers keep in mind while ordering IT equipment. With this partnership, both QNAP and ZyXEL are moving towards addressing these concerns. Long term support and reliability can only be assessed as the partnership gains more customers.